Cobblestones
by Jemennuie
Summary: "That man is following you," the woman whispered to Katie. "But I know how to keep us safe; just follow what I do." One-shot.


A/N: This is set during the summer before Harry's 6th year. As the only known Death Eaters during the 6th book are those who were at the Department of Mysteries, the 'Wanted' posters in this one-shot are intended to describe generic, no-name Death Eaters.

…

By the time Katie Bell finally leaves Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, the street is dark. The sound of her closing the store's door echoes through Diagon Alley, and there is no one in sight except for a man in black robes irritably checking his pocket watch. As Katie starts walking, she silently curses herself for having agreed to stay for one more mug of Butterbeer with the twins because one more mug turned into two more mugs, turned into three more mugs, turned into her leaving when all of the other stores had already closed for the day.

She is not one to be afraid of the dark – she is a Gryffindor, after all – but You-Know-Who has reappeared from nowhere only a few months ago, and the 'Wanted' posters for various Death Eaters leer at her as she walks, and she can hear her mother's gentle voice saying

_Never walk alone at night, Katie._

George offered to walk her to the Leaky Cauldron's Floo, of course, but he was slurring his words from too much Butterbeer, and Fred snickered and asked if they should call her mummy if the dark was so scary, and Katie raised her chin and proudly proclaimed that she would be perfectly fine and they should worry about themselves.

One of the 'Wanted' posters on her walk is screaming - a thin, tinny sound– and she pauses to look at the flyer. The picture is small and cramped, battered by the wind and the rain with a fat water stain obscuring the name. As she watches, the man in the photo pauses to grab his matted beard and twist it with both hands and scream with a renewed fervor and he rocks back and forth in the frame with a knowing glint to his eyes as though he has seen the end of the world. He licks his lips hungrily and Katie stares horrified at his deranged smile as he smiles and gnashes his teeth and smiles and smiles and smiles.

The slamming of a door startles Katie and she whips her head in the direction of the sound to find a woman leaving Madam Malkin's. There's the sound of jingling keys as the woman locks the door and turns to leave, and Katie shakes her head and thinks that she shouldn't let herself get distracted and continues walking to the Leaky Cauldron.

She has never noticed before how far away the Leaky Cauldron is from the Weasley twins' store and she passes one, two, three streetlamps whose fires are extinguished and silently tells herself that she is not the superstitious type, that it is merely a coincidence. She idly wonders if there is someone she can complain to about re-casting the flame charms, some sort of Diagon Alley maintenance, and when a black cat dashes across the street in front of her she nearly jumps out of her skin.

Her heartbeat is pounding in her ears now, and she tries to ignore the heightened sensation of her breath catching in her lungs. She focuses on the sound her heels make on the cobblestones as she walks – the _click click click_ – because it's a very clean sound, the sound of her mother making coffee in the morning, the sound of meeting Alicia in the library, the sound Katie thinks a businesswoman must make. It is the sound of a neat, well-put together, _powerful_ woman, and Katie elevates her chin slightly as she continues her brisk walk to the Leaky Cauldron's Floo.

There is another _click click click_ on the cobblestones now, and Katie turns to find the woman from Madam Malkin's walking behind her, and Katie slows to let the woman pass her but she doesn't pass. She walks right up to Katie and whispers with her voice quivering in fear, "Ma'am, do you know that man?"

Her breath catches in her throat again, and she jerks her head ever so slightly to the side and sees a man cloaked in black robes some distance behind them. She squints for some hint of ginger hair, because she would _kill _Fred and George if this was their idea of a joke, but she can't see the man's hair and it really doesn't matter because his build looks all wrong to be Fred or George, and she looks back at the woman next to her and gives a tense shake of her head.

"He's been followin' you," the woman continues in a low voice. The woman looks to be in her thirties or forties and has a short, chubby build with a round face. Her stylish robes and the carefully applied make-up on her face suggest that she is trying oh-so-hard to be pretty, and the woman looks at Katie with earnest concern when she asks, "Do you know why he's followin' you?"

Katie swallows and shakes her head and listens for the calming _click click click_ of her heels but they are tangled with the _click click click_ of the other woman's heels and it completely ruins their steady, metronome-like regularity.

"Think," the woman says with a motherly tone, but the woman's voice is all wrong to be her mother's because she has never heard her mother sound afraid. "Did you just leave an expensive store? Maybe he's just a pick-pocket – I've run into a few of those in my years workin' at Madam Malkin's."

"No, Fred and George don't stock anything that costs more than a few Galleons," Katie quietly breathes.

"Who?" The woman sounds perplexed.

"I mean – they're the owners of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. I was just visiting them; we're friends," Katie explains, and just saying that brings an image of Fred and George to mind and she smiles and for a split second the fear is gone.

"I don't know why else he would be followin' us, then," the woman says, her concerned expression returning as she nervously glances over her shoulder at the man again. "I wonder – I mean – I hope not, but – "

"What?" Katie says, the fear slinking around her ribcage again.

"I wonder if he's a Death Eater. Look at all of these 'Wanted' posters; he could be any of them!" the woman whispers and Katie's eyes meet the rows and rows of 'Wanted' posters and she can almost hear the tinny scream of the smiling man who had seen the end of the world. "Although, we – we could be safe. Are you Muggleborn?"

"Half-blood," Katie says numbly, and her fingers twitch for her wand.

"No, don't try to attack him!" the woman exclaims in shocked whisper. "Haven't you heard what the Death Eaters can do? He could kill us!"

"I know," Katie says, and worriedly shakes her head. "I'm only a Hogwarts student still; I probably couldn't take him."

"We need to try to get away. I – I have an idea that could work. There's an alleyway a few storefronts down that we can take. It's a shortcut that will lead us directly to the Leaky Cauldron, an' then we can use the Floo."

The alleyway is narrow, crammed between two storefronts as an afterthought and the only light is slivers of reflected white from the stars, but Katie can see bright city lights at the distant end of the alley and she heaves a sigh of relief as she and the woman begin to walk through the alley together. "Thank you," she says.

The woman nods. "You have to be careful – those Death Eaters can be tricky."

"I just don't know what I would have done without you, Ms. ...?"

"Carrow," the woman replies, and Katie doesn't notice the malevolent smile making its way across her face. "Alecto Carrow."

Katie only makes it a few steps into the alley before there is a sharp pain in her knees and the sensation crawls like beetles up her spine until she feels as though she has become a block of granite and she tries to scream but her vocal chords won't vibrate and she wants to tell Alecto to _run,_ to run for help until she can't run anymore because the man must have caught her but she can't even see Alecto all she can hear is the clean _click click click_ of a single pair of heels until Alecto is facing her and the _click click click_ sounds stop and Alecto has her wand pointed directly at Katie.

"Didn't mummy ever tell you to not listen to strangers?" Alecto says cruelly and the malevolent grin is firmly planted on her face and Katie's heart is pumping so loudly in her ears that all she can hear is _ba-dump ba-dump_.

There's the sound of another pair of feet, but this pair does not go _click click click_. It sounds heavy and tired, and a man's voice wheezes, "Bloody hell, Alecto, why do you have to walk so fast?"

"If you had started walkin' on time like we had planned, Amycus, then you wouldn't be so far behind," Alecto irritably replies.

Amycus's heavy steps draw nearer and Katie realizes he is the cloaked man who was walking behind them. He is clean-shaven with a lopsided smirk and she thinks that he does not have the same glint to his eyes as the man in the poster who had seen the end of the world. He looks more like a cat examining a cat toy, and he turns to Alecto and says, "What have we got today? A Mudblood, finally? I've been hopin' to practice my Cruciatus."

"Hold your hippogriffs; she's a half-blood," Alecto retorts authoritatively.

"That's no fun," Amycus grumbles. "This is our third half-blood this week. I'm gettin' sick of all this catch and release."

"Even if we only practice our Cruciatus and Killing Curses on Mudbloods, she could be useful in a different way," Alecto says, examining her not like a cat toy but a particularly complicated household appliance. "She's a Hogwarts student, an' friends with the blood traitor Weasleys."

"How is that useful?" he snorts.

"Hogwarts is where Dumbledore is, an' the Weasleys are rumored to be workin' for Dumbledore. We could use the Imperius Curse on her and spy on them."

"No, absolutely not." Katie can see in the dim light of the alley that Amycus is vehemently shaking her head. "It's too risky. She knows our names. If she threw off the Imperius Curse we'd be screwed."

"I guess," Alecto says, but she strokes her wand with a hungry look to her eyes.

"Do you want to cast the Memory Charm or should I?" he says, and Alecto shrugs. Amycus lifts his wand and Katie feels a jolt of fear and she wants to scream, to run and run and run but the only running sensation she can feel is the memories running from her mind like paint the _ba-dump ba-dump_ and "Thank you, Ms. …?" and pick-pockets and _click click click_ and black cats and a knowing glint and _Never walk alone at night, Katie _and

they're all running together like paint and she can feel them slipping away the colors and sounds and feelings and her knees hurt and something smooth and cold is pressing against her face and she can hear a _click click click _and light is shining in her eyes and there's a man and a woman looking at her with concerned expressions.

The man is clean-shaven and has a lopsided smile and the woman is wearing stylish robes and carefully applied make-up as though she is trying oh-so-hard to be pretty. They're both in their thirties or forties and short and chubby and they rather look like they could be siblings and Katie suddenly realizes she's lying on the street's cobblestones and she sits up and holds a hand to her pounding head.

"What – what happened?" she says, but her words come out slurred.

"Looks like a few too many Butterbeers," the woman says kindly.

"Not that you would know anythin' about that, sister," the man snickers, and he has a hearty sort of laugh that matches his heavy build.

"Aw, shut up." The woman playfully smacks the man on his arm, before attentively looking back at Katie. "Do you need help gettin' to the Leaky Cauldron?"

Katie shakes her head, and stumbles to her feet. "I'll be okay. Thank you."

Her mind is still swirling as she walks away, and she shakes her head. Merlin, that is the last time she stays for Butterbeer with Fred and George.

…

A/N: First of all, many, many thanks to ReillyJade for beta-ing and definitely helping me improve this piece. On other notes, I stuck to everything we know about the Carrows in canon, but there simply isn't very much about them in canon. Of the most relevance to this one-shot is that we don't know their jobs before Hogwarts, or how good of actors they can be. This one-shot is also set before the Carrows were unmasked as Death Eaters, which is why Katie doesn't react to their name. I'll also mention that some of my disregard for grammar was done for stylistic reasons, but if you think that just doesn't work, I'd be curious to hear.

Reviews and/or constructive criticism always appreciated, especially if you favorite the story.


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